The Way Forward is Sometimes the Way Back
by Rikkitsune
Summary: Single, alone and unmarried, Sarah Williams gives birth to her first child. But someone is watching... Rated M for references to sex and childbirth.
1. Childbirth SUCKS! No, really!

_Yes, it's been a while! Thanks everyone for sticking with me._

_I'm getting more involved in the Labyrinth fandom now, and moving away from Rurouni Kenshin. I write this fic for Springfest on the Labyfic community on Livejournal. There are links to my LJ, where I pimp the community on my profile page, if you're interested._

**_Please note this story is rated M for childbirth and sexual references._**

_Enjoy!_

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><p>Sarah had been dusting her bookshelf one morning when her waters broke. Three weeks early.<p>

She looked at the (rather) large puddle on the floor and was thankful that her floor was wooden, and that her mop had an extra long handle.

The labour pains had started about ten minutes later, in the way Sarah had read about in all the baby books – sharp back pain that seemed to spike, settle, then spike again ten minutes later. It kind of reminded Sarah of when she'd jarred her back at the gym.

Realising that the time had come (or, at least, the time was _starting_to come), Sarah called her midwife, just to be on the safe side.

"Just try to make yourself comfortable hun, and wait for the _real_pain to start," her midwife, Alice, had advised, after listening attentively to Sarah's detailed description of her contractions, plus the puddle's colour, consistency and odour. "Call me if you start bleeding. Otherwise, I'll be over in a couple of hours to check on you."

It was hard to be a fretful first-time mother when your midwife just didn't seem to think it was a big deal. Especially a fretful, first-time, _single_mother.

"She's done this hundreds of times," Sarah reassured herself for what felt like the millionth time, waddling past the birthing pool taking up the majority of the lounge (and chewing up a tonne of electricity), into the kitchen. "She's successfully delivered hundreds of babies. This is totally normal and natural and I am _not_panicking."

She'd opted for a natural, at-home birth, because it just felt right and made more sense to her than lying alone on a bed in a smelly hospital with a whole bunch of strangers staring up her cooch.

Also, with the rest of her family across the other side of the country, she couldn't bring herself to ask Karen to travel over on short notice to be her birth partner. She couldn't think of anyone else to trust with the task.

She hadn't thought her stepmother would mind being asked – in fact, she'd been as involved in Sarah's pregnancy as she could be, long distance – it was just that, as Sarah's impending motherhood approached, she felt taking Karen away from her own familial responsibilities would be selfish.

So, Sarah had gone to the pre-natal classes alone, worked with her midwife alone, done her kegels faithfully every day (um, alone) and read a whole pile of books about what to eat/drink/wear/listen to in order to keep her baby in optimum health. She'd then monitored her diet and exercise. Alone.

Sarah had eventually determined that being pregnant was pretty damn boring, at least from the food perspective. No booze, no cigarettes, no sushi, no fetta cheese, no lemon meringue pie, no _cake batter_for God's sake. No re-heated food either. It had been costing a fortune to eat fresh food every day.

The first thing Sarah planned on doing once she'd stopped breastfeeding was sitting down with a tube of M&Ms cookie batter, a bottle of Baileys and the box set of Sex and the City and finishing them all.

After a couple of hours, the hot wheat bag on her lower back stopped working. Sarah dragged herself into the bathroom, faintly annoyed that she seemed to need a couple of rest stops along the way to sag against the wall and pant. She turned on the shower tap, running the water as hot as she could stand and leaned her forehead against the tiled wall, bending over as much as she could to let the spray beat against her back.

Sarah didn't know how long she'd stayed in the shower, zoning in and out of awareness in time to her contractions, but by the time she could muster the willpower to step out of it, all the hot water had gone. An hour then, perhaps? Maybe longer?

As she sluggishly ran the towel over her engorged belly and the parts of her legs that were still within reach, she heard the doorbell. Sarah pulled on the nearest t-shirt and wrapped the towel around her hips.

"I'm coming!" she called out, levering herself off the end of her bed as the doorbell rang again. It took longer to get to the door than she would have liked. The contractions seemed to be coming faster now. The pain was spreading, starting in her lower back and wrapping around her abdomen and down her legs like a barbed wire garter belt.

The midwife, Alice, bustled in when Sarah finally opened the door, all smiles and encouraging pats on the arm. It was both encouraging and annoying.

After checking her dilation, Alice told Sarah it was time to get into the birthing pool. Knowing the drill, Sarah dropped her towel and climbed into the warm water bare from the waist down.

She grunted as a particularly painful contraction took her, flopping back to rest against the side of the pool as it subsided.

"Do I push yet?" she ground out, thoroughly over labour already and wanting it to end.

"Not yet," Alice said, much to Sarah's disappointment. "We're not through the first stage yet, but we're almost there. When we get to stage two, the contractions won't be coming so fast, and you'll feel the urge to push with them. _That's_when you start pushing. Remember the classes?"

"Yes," Sarah acquiesced, although truthfully, everything she'd learned in the classes had flown out her ears as soon as the contractions had gotten serious.

Sarah lay in the pool for the next hour, riding out the pain while Alice timed her contractions, then brought her a sandwich and a cup of tea. "Eat while you can," she encouraged, as Sarah stuffed half of it in her mouth at once. "You'll need your energy and strength."

After what felt like forever, Sarah felt the baby shift and was then overwhelmed with the need to push down.

"It's happening," she gasped, as a contraction started.

"Go with it," Alice encouraged her, helping Sarah lean forward a little and pouring some water down her back. "Push down until you feel like you can't push anymore. Keep breathing. Don't hold your breath."

Sarah obeyed, puffing a bit when the pain suddenly turned knife-like. Her eyes started watering. "Is... it... meant... to... hurt... like... this?" she wheezed.

"Mostly," Alice answered, patting Sarah's forehead with a cloth. "Let's hope baby doesn't want to take their time getting out of there."

Not for the first time, Sarah wished the baby's goddamned father was here to stroke her hair, sponge her forehead, have his hand crushed and reassure her she was doing fine; she was doing a good job. Also, having someone to yell at about being _in_this predicament in the first place would be nice.

Sarah groaned in relief as the pain subsided. _Stage Two_, she thought. _I'm nearly there. We're going to make it._

As the next contraction started, Sarah pushed again, clenching her fists with the effort. She started in shock as she felt a warm rush – that couldn't be right. Her waters had broken at least two hours ago.

"Alice...," Sarah started to say, looked down and sobbed in terror as she spotted the cloud of pinkish blood in the water, spreading from between her legs. The whole world narrowed to a pinprick, Sarah's memory of reading in the pregnancy books that bleeding was a _bad_thing.

"We need to get you to hospital, now," Alice said in her ear, already putting her cell phone down. The woman's voice was calm, Sarah knew, in an attempt not to distress her more than necessary. "I think the baby is having some trouble making its way down the canal. The doctors might need to do a caesarean to get it out."

Sarah felt her face crumpling in pain, fear and disappointment. Her hopes for having a peaceful, home water birth were gone.

Thoughts of failure were shoved aside for the moment as another agonising contraction tore through her body. Sarah screamed, but muffled it a bit by clenching her teeth. She tried not to push, not wanting to hurt the baby. Ignoring the urge was almost impossible. She sounded a lot like a wounded, panting rhinoceros. There was no way she was going to be able to get through this.

Alice helped Sarah to her feet and out of the birthing pool. Together, they staggered over to lean Sarah against the nearest wall. Sarah tried her best to stay upright and still, while the midwife dried her off and helped her get an Indian cotton skirt on that had been lying on the couch nearby. Alice pulled the drawstrings together – not too tight – and tied them off.

"Where's your hospital bag?"

Sarah, teeth still clenched, pointed down the hallway. "Bed," she grunted. As Alice took off in that direction, Sarah heard the clatter of numerous feet on the tiles inside her front door. Thank God she'd left it unlocked.

A buzzing started in her ears and Sarah gripped the wall as best she could as another contraction squeezed her mercilessly.

Strong hands supported her by the armpits as she sagged towards the floor. One of the three paramedics was a woman, Sarah noticed.

"We've got something for that pain," a burly male paramedic told her. His name tag said "Steve". Steve held a green whistle in front of Sarah's mouth. "Open up," he commanded. Sarah obeyed and he laid the plastic end against her tongue. "You're going to need to suck on this, if you can, to get the painkiller into your system." Nodding dumbly through the pain and terror, Sarah tried to remember how to suck.

The female paramedic was rubbing firm circles on Sarah's lower back as they began to stagger towards the front door in an awkward group of four. Sarah tried not to let her head rest on the burly male paramedic's arm, but it was so heavy.

"Have you had children?" Sarah asked the female paramedic out of the corner of her mouth. She was shocked at her guttural, broken voice. It must be the whistle doing it. Yes, the whistle.

"Four," the woman answered with a sympathetic smile. She kept rubbing Sarah's back, propelling her forward. "You're gonna be just fine. Keep walking now, we're almost there." The gurney was sitting just inside the front door. The lounge had been too crowded to bring it all the way in.

It seemed to take forever for the paramedics to strap her onto the gurney. "Don't worry," one of them had reassured her, a skinny guy, as he fastened the last buckle. It was getting hard to hear voices over the ringing in her ears. "We can deliver babies if we have to – it's one of the rare happy parts of our job."

Alice was suddenly there too, and she held Sarah's hand as her world blurred into a yellowish haze of rocking and floating and silence. The sun was shining through the back windows of the ambulance, right into her eyes. It made the passing world look as though it had been gilded with the soft strokes of an impressionist's paintbrush. Sarah thought about Van Gogh's Sunflowers and wondered if she was going to die in childbirth.

Distantly, Sarah noticed Alice was shaking her hand, talking to her. She couldn't hear the words anymore. Two more faces appeared in her line of vision, mouths moving silently. The female paramedic and the skinny male paramedic. Steve must be driving.

It was all too hard, trying to figure out what they were saying. Sarah opted for closing her eyes instead, it was far more peaceful.

She opened them again, later, feeling a tad annoyed, when they started jostling her head around. They'd put something on her face. The female paramedic had one of Sarah's hands pressed against her chest, which was moving up and down. She was patting Sarah's chest, then pointing to Sarah's hand on her own chest.

After staring at this for a while, it occurred to Sarah that she should be making her chest move up and down as well. It felt like lifting a huge weight, but she managed it. The paramedic seemed satisfied with this effort and let go of Sarah's hand.

Alice was resting her hand on Sarah's shoulder, and she closed her eyes again.

When she opened them again, the world was blue and white, lit with harsh lights that left dancing imprints on the backs of her eyelids. Sarah stared blankly at the blue linoleum floor and the white linen next to her nose.

Hands were rolling her onto her back and Sarah realised she'd been lying curled up on her side. She couldn't see any faces she knew. Alice, Steve and the other paramedics were gone.

"What's... happening?" she asked the nearest light fitting, since she couldn't see any people. It was hard to get the words out. Her tongue felt thick and dry in her mouth.

A young female face appeared above her. It had freckles and green eyes, above a blue mask that covered everything else. Sarah dimly wondered if the hair under the scrubs cap was red and curly.

"We've given you an epidural," Freckle-face said and Sarah was relieved that she could hear things again. "It's to stop you from feeling the pain."

Alarmed, she tried to sit up when she heard the word "Scalpel!" but Freckle-face pressed her back down.

"It's all right Miss Williams. It's all right. We're doing a caesarean section to get the baby out. We need you to lie still and be as calm as you can."

"The baby," Sarah whispered. Tears began leaking from the corners of her eyes as she suddenly remembered the blood. "Is it... all right?"

There was a silence as the nurse looked away, down towards where the doctors were operating. Sarah could feel them tugging and pulling on her lower body, but there was no pain. She felt lost and completely disconnected from her body and her child.

She heard the words "not breathing" and "possible brain damage." Freckle-face still wouldn't look at her.

Silently, Sarah prayed for somebody, _anybody_to save her baby. She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears.

No one seemed to notice the tall blonde man who was suddenly standing behind Sarah, with his hand resting on her shoulder. It was quite odd, really, as he was rather the type to stand out. For a start, he wasn't wearing scrubs, but a tight fitting pair of grey breeches, tall black boots and a crimson leather jacket. But the gazes of the other people in the theatre seemed to slide right off him.

All at once, once of the doctor's cried "She's breathing!" Sarah's eyes shot open. It was a girl. A daughter. And she was breathing.

As the doctor laid the tiny, wet, blood covered squalling baby on its mother's chest, Sarah cried in earnest with a strange and explosive mix of exhaustion, relief, happiness and love. She bent her head, totally absorbed in her new daughter.

The blonde stranger leaned over the pair to kiss the infant on its velvety little forehead. His long blonde hair fell across Sarah's face and neck, but she didn't feel it.

Before he straightened up completely, he whispered something in Sarah's ear.

Sarah looked down at her baby and smiled. "I think I'll call her Elina," she whispered to herself.

The man smiled and faded away as the nurse gently retrieved the baby from Sarah's arms.


	2. An Awkward Access Visit

_And here is the second and final chapter. More Jareth-ness to come. Still rated M._

_Enjoy!_

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><p>"Mummy!"<p>

Sarah looked up from her knitting with a smile as her seven year old daughter capered across the park towards her. It had been a brisk spring day and the late afternoon sun shone yellow gold in the child's long platinum blonde hair. As the light fell across her face, Sarah found herself repressing memories of another blonde face with high cheekbones, thin lips and intense eyes.

She looks so much like him...

The little girl skidded to a stop in front of her mother. "Look what I found!" she exclaimed proudly, holding out a large white feather.

"That's a lovely feather, Elina," Sarah told her, reaching out to take it. Rummaging through her handbag, she pulled out a sandwich sized plastic baggie of bread pieces. "Here you go. Time to go visit your friends at the pond."

Elina grabbed the bag with a grin and took off towards the pond at the other end of the park. Her 'friends' would be expecting her, as they did every day.

Elina had always had an unexplained fascination for birds, owls in particular. It had discomfited Sarah a great deal at first – the owl being such a close connection to the Goblin King and his owl form. She had thought it might be some sort of channel he was using to establish some sort of contact with herself, or, worse, Elina – but the girl seemed to genuinely like birds. She had scores of books on them, her bedroom walls were covered in drawings and photographs of them and bird figurines littered her dresser and the windowsill next to her bed. Elina had recently taken to collecting feathers she found in the park.

This new addition to Elina's feather collection would be ceremoniously joining it's fellows in her room later, but until then, it was Sarah's task to Keep It Safe. She stowed the feather between the pages of a book sitting next to her on the park bench, forgotten in favour of some knitting. She was currently making a pink fluffy beanie and scarf set for her daughter.

Sarah had once offered to buy her Elina a bird as a pet, but she had refused.

"No Mummy!" she had exclaimed in the pet shop, scandalised. "I would have to keep it in a cage." She had said 'cage' like it was some sort of dirty word. The pet shop attendant had tried to explain that you could keep some birds on a cage-less perch and they could go everywhere with you, usually sitting on your shoulder. Elina had then asked some very pointed questions about wing clipping and Sarah had steered her daughter from the shop before an 'incident' could transpire.

Secretly, Sarah had been proud that her daughter had refused to keep an animal against its will. She often thought back to Merlin and felt slightly guilty about keeping him, especially in the face of her young daughter's fierce belief that all animals should be wild and free. She often wondered how Elina knew as much as she did about birds, being so young, but she generally chalked it up to her daughter's stacks of books and enquiring mind. It was easier to dismiss the creeping feelings that perhaps Elina wasn't quite... normal... that way.

Elina's fascination with birds was mutual, or so it seemed. Birds of all kinds seemed to be naturally attracted to Elina. It was common for their yard to be full of pigeons and doves, even the occasional parrot or parakeet.

The appearance of the owls had frightened Sarah at first, particularly given their tendency to roost in the tree outside Elina's bedroom window each night. However, they weren't white barn owls (which would have caused Sarah to immediately pack up and move, bird bigotry be damned), but snowy owls.

Under the persistent cajoling of her daughter, Sarah had eventually agreed that yes, they were pretty, just like Harry Potter's bird, Hedwig. Although, Elina had told Sarah, very seriously, owls don't really deliver mail.

After a couple of weeks of their nightly appearances, nothing had changed, no one had disappeared (or appeared) and Elina was acting perfectly normally. Sarah had eventually attributed the owl visits to the general odd interest the creatures seemed to have with her daughter.

Sarah watched Elina now, standing near the pond's edge with a flock of birds clustering around her. The ducks in particular loved Elina, and tended to follow her around the park. They even let her pet their fuzzy little ducklings once in a while. That was always rather exciting for Elina, who had a special love for baby birds of any kind.

Sarah vividly remembered when she and Elina had hand-raised two baby pigeons who had fallen from their nest two Springs ago. It seemed so unbelievable for a five year old to be so dedicated to the care of two such tiny creatures, but Elina had been a consummate foster mother and Sarah was only needed to occasionally adjust the heat lamp or heat the gruel in the microwave.

The swans at the pond always ate out of Elina's hands and let her stroke their graceful necks. None of the geese had ever hissed at her, nipped her or chased her away. All the birds just seemed content to form an orderly queue and wait for their piece of bread and human attention. Elina was always totally relaxed and at home feeding the birds. Of course, if Sarah were to approach, the spell would break and Elina's little friends would all scatter in fright. She had learnt to keep her distance while her daughter held her feathered court.

As the sun sank behind the tree-line, the park began to grow dark and colder than just the nippy Spring afternoon. Time to leave. Sarah called her daughter back from the pond, gathering up her knitting, book and handbag. They trudged home together through the dusk, giggling at the swishing sounds their gore-tex jackets made in the otherwise silent suburban streets. Elina insisted on carrying her new feather and Sarah watched the girl absently as she pranced ahead waving it, mentally planning the evening dinner-bath-bed schedule.

After a messy dinner of tacos and a bath that took far longer and used more bubble bath than it needed to, a clean and pajama-clad Elina headed upstairs to her small loft bedroom to play a little before bed-time. Elina's bedroom was the only room on the second storey of the house and she loved it, because her bedroom window was level with the treetops and she could watch the birds roosting.

Smiling in anticipation of a little time to herself, Sarah decided to put some coffee on and curl up on the couch with the new season of True Blood. Watching the whole fairy saga never ceased to amuse her. They were nothing like real fairies, vicious little bitches.

"She is quite an enchanting child."

Sarah spun, catching her coffee pot with her elbow and knocking it to the floor. Wincing a little at the loud crash, she staggered back into the kitchen wall, hand grasping the front of her sweatshirt.

There he was. The Goblin King. Leaning his hip against the end of her kitchen bench, arms folded, looking perfectly at home. The years hadn't changed him one iota, he was still devastatingly perfect and not human. Sarah tore her eyes away ruthlessly as they started to drift downwards.

Surely... the Goblin King hadn't come for Elina?

"You," she gasped, half terrified, half furious. "What are you doing here? You have no right to look at my child. Stay away from my baby Goblin King! Don't you go getting any funny ideas about kidnapping her!"

"Now why on earth would I want to kidnap her?" he chuckled. "I don't kidnap children. Besides, no one has wished her away. I knew you would not be as irresponsible with your own child as you were with your brother."

Sarah flushed and hated herself for it.

"You should call me Jareth, precious," her visitor drawled as he sauntered out of the kitchen and sat down on her couch like he owned it. Sarah gaped at his nerve. "After all, you are the mother of my child."

"Elina is yours?" Sarah hissed, wondering at the dual feeling of being so surprised and yet not surprised at all. "Bullshit!"

"Of course she is mine," Jareth snapped, frowning. "Do you honestly think I would let you carry another man's seed? Besides, I doubt you're even aware that Elina is a name for Underground royalty. Considering I was the one who suggested it!"

Sarah, for once, was speechless. It seemed pointless to keep denying it in the face of Jareth's certainty.

He fixed her with a penetrating stare. "Don't try to tell me you don't remember that night," he said in a softer voice. "Because I know you do."

Sarah couldn't look him in the eye. But she did remember. It had always been easier to tell herself that it had been a dream and Elina was her ex-boyfriend's child. After all, he'd been blonde and devastatingly gorgeous too. All the men she'd had since the labyrinth were.

"Well then," she snapped "If she's your daughter like you say, where the hell were you when Elina was born? We both nearly died you know!" She glared at him.

"And why was it, do you think, that Elina did not die? And you did not die?" Jareth asked her softly.

"But I didn't see you anywhere," Sarah shot back, not wanting to believe he would care that much. "How do I know you're not just trying to trick me?"

"I was there," Jareth insisted. "I was behind you. I answered your call and saved our daughter." His expression became completely serious. "Giving birth to our kind is often... difficult, even if the mother is human. I would have been there the entire time, but she came early. I was in the middle of challenging a runner. I only just made it there in time."

Sarah couldn't think of a thing to say. She couldn't very well continue to be a complete bitch when he had answered her prayer and kept Elina from dying. Our kind? Was it true? Did that mean that Elina... was like Jareth? She certainly looked like him. Her uncanny little mannerisms and unnerving focus on her interests had always made Sarah wonder about her daughter, but her thoughts had always seemed to head down the Aspergers Syndrome or Autism tracks. Something tangible. Something human.

A long silence stretched between them.

"So." Jareth eventually spoke. He looked less than completely self-assured and it gave Sarah pause. She only remembered seeing an expression like that on his face once before. It was when she had won the game and destroyed the Labyrinth for good measure.

"You want to meet Elina properly," Sarah said, deciding not to make things more difficult than they needed to be. Jareth nodded.

"I've waited a long time for the right moment, watched you both," he said. "She's growing up and I didn't want to stay away for too long."

Sarah wasn't feeling sure if this was the right moment. She felt a sort of maternal possessiveness towards her daughter. Elina was hers, no one else's, the little spark of light that kept her going, even on the really bad days. Having a responsibility to love and care for a child was what had kept Sarah tied to the real world all these years. Without Elina, Sarah would most likely have lost all sense of purpose and drifted away into nothingness many years before.

But still… she felt that denying Jareth access to his child was unfair to the point of spite. As far as she knew, he had no other children. What if he was a first-time parent, just like her?

"Am I the only… I mean, are there any others…?" Sarah trailed off, unable to think of a delicate and polite way to phrase the question.

"Are you asking me whether other women have borne my children, or whether I have other children?" Jareth asked shrewedly.

Sarah felt her face flush. Why was this so important and at the same time, so embarrassing to ask? "Both."

Jareth shrugged elegantly. "It is very difficult for a Sidhe woman to conceive a pureblood Sidhe child. It's one of the reasons I never married. Human women, on the other hand, are extremely fertile. It only took one encounter with you before you became with child."

Sarah's nostrils flared. "How nice for you, finding your very own brood mare," she snapped. Taking a second, she looked away from him, reining in her temper. "Answer the question Jareth, please."

"Elina is my only child and heir," Jareth answered. "She will rule my kingdom when I retire as monarch."

It was an exciting feeling for Sarah, knowing that Elina was the first and therefore, most important of Jareth's children. But it was also a fearful feeling. If Elina had simply been one of many children sired during Jareth's dalliances with mortal women, perhaps they wouldn't have drawn his attention, and been free to live their lives in peace.

But now, she had a Goblin King in her lounge room, asking for some absurd parody of an access visit. She had a feeling that their peaceful lives wouldn't be resuming any time soon. Trying to ignore her nervousness, Sarah stood and walked to the bottom of the stairs.

"Elina," she called, knowing her voice would carry into her daughter's bedroom. "Come downstairs please. There's someone here who would like to meet you."

"Coming!" Elina called back, her voice slightly muffled. Jareth stood as he heard the thumps of her footfalls begin down the stairs. He had seen his daughter countless times over the years, but never in the flesh. Not since the day she had been born. He was most definitely not nervous. At all. Not even a tiny bit.

Elina paused next to her mother, who was still standing at the foot of the stairs. She could tell her mother wasn't happy about something, but wasn't sure what that something was.

She spotted the tall blonde man standing in the lounge room and approached him for a better look, her face full of the bright curiosity that only children can manage.

"I know you," she declared confidently, after studying him for a few moments. She sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to her enthusiastically.

"You do?" Jareth's voice sounded genuinely intrigued. He sat down next to his daughter. The mocking undertone Sarah was so accustomed to hearing was completely absent. She moved quickly to join them but froze halfway across the room as her daughter spoke.

"You're my Daddy," Elina told him, in a tone that suggested she was explaining something very, very obvious.

Jareth raised his eyebrows. "How do you know that?"

Elina rolled her eyes. "You've been talking to me for ages." Sarah jerked as if she'd been stung. Jareth looked completely nonplussed.

"I have?"

"Don't be silly Daddy. Of course you have. You've been sending the white owls to come and talk to me."

Sarah locked eyes with Jareth across the room, furious. So he had been making contact with Elina without her knowledge. How dare he! She expected to see a guilty expression, but he merely looked confused.

"I sent the white owls to see you, not to talk to you," Jareth said carefully, flicking glances at Sarah's irate face. "I couldn't see you myself, because I'm so far away. So the owls would keep an eye on you for me."

"But they talked to me," Elina insisted. "They told me all about you, that you're a King and you have a big kingdom. They told me about The Book and where it was, so I went and found it and read the story."

"The Book?" Sarah choked out. There was only one Book she knew of, and it was buried at the bottom of the linen trunk in her wardrobe, wrapped in an old tea towel.

"Yes Mummy!" Elina said, exasperated. "The red book, the one where you wished Uncle Toby away by accident and met Daddy the first time. You never read that book to me at story-time." She pouted, then turned back to Jareth.

"I was wondering why you never came to see Mummy and me, but then I saw that your kingdom was very far away and it would be hard to come visit."

"You saw…?" Sarah, struggling valiantly to speak calmly, felt faint. Of course it followed that Elina would be 'special' in that way, being Jareth's daughter, but it was still a shock to hear her speaking about her talents so matter-of-factly.

"The owls showed me," Elina said. "They asked me if I wanted to go to see Daddy—" Jareth's expression darkened at this "—but I told them I couldn't possibly leave you Mummy." She paused thoughtfully. "I had this feeling that if the owls took me away, it would be very hard to come back."

"Go back up to your room Elina," Sarah blurted. The girl fixed her mother with a questioning glance. Sarah looked between her daughter's face and Jareth's, feeling thoroughly unnerved.

"Your mother and I need to talk a bit," Jareth explained, drawing Elina's gaze, when it became apparent Sarah wasn't going to be saying anything any time soon.

Elina considered this for a moment, then nodded. "I'll go and play with my figurines," she told him, then crossed the room and clumped back up the stairs.

Sarah took a few steps, then flopped down on one end of the couch. A few minutes went by and she still did not seem inclined to speak. Jareth sighed and sat down on the other end, knowing she was waiting for an explanation.

"Elina was right, you know," Jareth told her grimly, breaking the tense silence. "If she had gone with the owls, her Sidhe blood would have overtaken her human blood as soon as she arrived in the Underground. She would never have been able to return." He glanced at Sarah, who was still very pale, her fingers twisted in her lap. "I'm sorry," he said earnestly, wanting to comfort her. He raised a hand to touch her, thought better of it and pretended to adjust his lace ruff.

"The owls were interfering against my instructions," he continued. "They knew that she was the future Queen and they were trying to preserve the Goblin Monarchy. They will be punished for what they have done."

"She kept all these secrets from me." Sarah burst out. She was distraught. Was this her baby? How could such a young child keep such huge, amazing secrets?

"You forget that Sidhe love secrets and intrigue," Jareth told her gently. "And games," he added, as an afterthought.

"She's not Sidhe!" Sarah hissed reflexively. His words had unleashed a flood of memories of her time in the Labyrinth. Secrets and games. She had been done with both for a long, long time.

Jareth watched her. She was not coping. He couldn't entirely blame her. She knew very well what he was, but Elina was something entirely different. Everything Sarah thought she knew about her child had been turned on its head in the last hour.

Taking a risk, he moved a little bit closer to her on the couch. To his relief she sank against his chest gratefully, seeming to want some physical comfort and not caring who gave it.

"I feel like this is too big for me," she confessed, conscious of Jareth's chin resting on top of her head but letting it go. "The two of you are magical creatures with a completely different world open to you and I'm just…" she struggled for the words.

"The Queen Mother?" Jareth suggested, not daring to call her the Goblin Queen. Not yet, at least. Sarah giggled, surprising herself.

"That makes me sound so old."

They were quiet for a while. Sarah found her recollection drawn to the night that she now realised Jareth had come to her. In the dark, she had thought it had been Rhys, the guy she had picked up at the bar, but now, she knew differently.

In her somewhat limited experience of bedroom activites, no man had never made love to her like that before. She had had no idea sex was even supposed to be that good. It had confused her a little, but it hadn't been long before she was past the point of caring. Her lover had made her scream herself hoarse, wringing every last ounce of pleasure from her body.

She'd passed out afterwards, she remembered with a blush.

Rhys hadn't been there the next morning. She'd never seen him again and had never been able to find him when she discovered she was pregnant with Elina.

"What did you do to that man?" she asked.

"I sent him away when you weren't looking," Jareth answered unrepentantly. "He never even touched you. I couldn't risk having him accidentally involved in my child's upbringing. He started a new life in another country, quite unaware of his previous identity."

Sarah knew that she should be outraged. Jareth had obviously orchestrated this whole debacle from start to finish. But, she couldn't seem to muster the strength. She was exhausted and Jareth's warmth was very comforting.

"I want to take Elina back to the Labyrinth," Jareth told her at length.

"I forbid it," Sarah answered immediately.

"Sarah, she is the heir to the Goblin throne, the Crown Princess. That makes her a target. I can offer her limited protection now, but as soon as she comes of age, I can do nothing."

Jareth tugged his glove off with his teeth and wiped Sarah's tears away. "I never said you weren't welcome to come with us."

"You want me to come with you? After what happened last time?"

"I would never separate you from our child. Apart from that, you, as a human, are free to come and go as you please, so you need not sacrifice your relationship with your other family. As long as Elina is under my protection, she may travel Aboveground from time to time. When she becomes Queen, she may go back and forth as she wishes."

Sarah shook her head. "This is too sudden. I can't answer you now. I need time to rest and think about this."

"Then rest," Jareth said softly, pressing his bare hand to her forehead. He watched her eyes drift shut and held her sleeping form for a quiet, peaceful moment. Then, he called his daughter.

Elina.

Elina entered the lounge room, answering her father's silent call and thinking nothing of it. She saw her mother, asleep in his arms.

"What did you do to Mummy?" despite the absolute trust she felt in her father, Elina was suddenly worried about her mother.

"Nothing, I promise," Jareth told her. "She was just a bit tired out after our conversation. She fell asleep."

"You want to take me back, don't you?" she asked. "Back to the Labyrinth."

"Yes," Jareth answered. "But I could never take you and leave your mother behind. She loves you too much."

Elina considered this for a moment. "Then are you going to take us both?"

Jareth grinned, showing a lot of teeth. "That was what I was planning yes."

"And did Mummy say that was ok?" Elina was obviously still suspicious and Jareth felt a twinge of paternal pride. She would be an excellent Queen one day.

"Yes," he lied without hesitation. He would convince Sarah to see his point of view soon enough. If she didn't agree to be his Queen straight away, he would at least have a lot of fun wearing her down.

Besides, Elina needed a mother and a father.

He watched his daughter as she came to sit beside him. "Are we going now?" she sounded half-excited, half-nervous.

"Yes," Jareth replied, tucking her against his side with one arm and gripping Sarah more firmly with the other. "Don't be nervous, everyone will be very happy to see you. I don't suppose you'll be wanting to try out your bird form when we get there, my dear?"

Misgivings forgotten for a moment, Elina bobbed her head up and down excitedly, caught up in the thrill of finally being able to fly with her owl friends.

In a burst of glitter, they were gone.


End file.
